The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
Financial advisors, such as registered investment advisors (RIAs) and their firms, often need to view data relating to investment holdings of clients for purposes of analysis, reporting, sharing, or recommendations. Client investments may be held by individuals, partnerships, trusts, companies, and other legal entities having complex legal or ownership relationships. RIAs and other users want to view complex holdings in a flexible way, for example, by selecting different metrics and/or defining their own views and reports on-the-fly.
However, current wealth management technology does not offer the capability to generate views, reports, or other displays of data from complex investment holding structures in a flexible, shareable, efficient way. Some existing wealth management systems are custom-built and therefore relatively static in their viewing capabilities, requiring programmers for customization. Other systems lack scalability and are time-consuming to use. A third type of system consists of MICROSOFT VISUAL BASIC scripts written for use with MICROSOFT EXCEL spreadsheets; this type of system is an awkward attempt to add some measure of flexibility to an otherwise static foundation.